The Application of the Hutt Color Cube Test to a Group of Subnormal Mentality
Samuel W. Fernberger
University of Pennsylvania
Hutt has published a standardization of the Color Cube Test in which he employed five figures each utilizing four blocks.1 The first three figures were copied by the subject with the standard before him. The last two figures were successively shown to the subject and then removed and the subject was required to make Copying Form I Form II Form III Memory Form IV Form V 55 M 0 ? o S Ojj* So & 03 o SR |.i ? SoS g g 8 3 Pk PL, ^ r> 7< O c ? s? .S O <3 c~ bo o M 2 s 8 S.S u 3 Pk CD g bO ? CD c3 O w *-? es ^ c w >.H u 100 100 110 100 100 56 14 56 36 56 63 100 100 75 100 100 100 100 21 33 41 52 53 62 55 100 90 26 34 24 38 30 56 35 60 91 43 91 24 53 40 21 46 28 48 91 68 95 30 19 19 21 26 16 37 95 20 84 25 26 32 17 24 50 18 33 20
a similar design from memory. Hutt gives a decile distribution of failures and of time scores for normal children from the sixth to the fourteenth year. In general he concludes that the first three figures (copying) are too easy for diagnostic purposes. The last two figures (memory) are significant, however. “Successful com1 For a description of the figures and standardized procedure cf. E. B. “W. Hutt, Standardization of a Color Cube Test. Psychol. Clinic, 1925, 16, 77-97. (The designs are pictured on page 80.)
pletion of either of the last two figures places the subject in a definite group. In the sixth and seventh years of chronological age, successful solution places the subject in the superior quintile of that group. In the eighth year, he is superior to 70% ; in the ninth year, superior to 50%; in the tenth and eleventh years, superior to 30%; in the twelfth, thirteenth and fourteenth years, superior to 20%.” (Page 97)
The following is a report of observations on a group of 145 special class children of subnormal mentality whose I.Q.’s, determined by the Stanford Revision, were known. In every case the I.Q. was 70 or less. The statistical analysis of the results has therefore been made on the basis of mental age rather than chronological age. Unfortunately it is not possible to get subnormal children in the special classes with a higher mental age than those obtained in this study, such children have mentality enough to progress in the regular classes. We have carried the group to a lower mental age, however, than Hutt did in his standardization. The results are given in the accompanying table. Here will be found the number of cases, the percentage of failures and the average times of the successful completions for each of the five forms of the test and for the nine mental age groups from 2 years to 9 years, inclusive.
A study of the table indicates that the first three tests (copying) are too easy to be of diagnostic value after 6 years mental age. There are too few cases below this age group but the results would indicate that these tests would have a certain diagnostic significance from 6 years mental age and lower. The last two tests (memory), on the other hand, are highly diagnostic throughout.
This sampling of subnormal cases is too small to be more than an indication but it would seem to conform rather closely to the diagnostic standards of Hutt with normal children.
CONCLUSIONS
1. An analysis of results by mental age for a group of subnormal children with regard to performance on the Color Cube (Design Block) Test gives results very similar to Hutt’s standardization with normal children by chronological age.
2. It would seem that mental age is an important factor for performance in the Color Cube Test, inasmuch as it seems to require a mental age of more than eight years for successful completion of the two memory forms (IV and V).
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